As of Q1 2013 AMD won’t offer Llano chips to the channel and it will completely transition to Trinity FM2, a lineup that will include a mixture of A10, A8, A6, A4 as well as Athlon X4 processors. The current plan is that such lineup stays until Richland comes in 2013, probably in late Q2 2013, which means volume shipments in Q3 2013, but only if AMD can stick to the original schedule.

The Virgo platform and Trinity look like a decent APU and even ultrathin notebooks based on Trinity are definitely worth a try. It is hard to tell whether Trinity will speed up AMD’s long term recovery but things are beginning to look better for them, at least in 2013.

There have been some rumors that AMD plans to drop prices on its older generation APUs as well as some AM3 Athlon II CPUs and as of yesterday, the new price list confirmed those cuts. Unfortunately the price cuts are not that impressive on the FM1 side but some AM3 Athlon II CPUs have seen a price reduction of over 30 percent.

The full list includes a total of six A-Series APUs and twelve AM3 Athlon II CPUs. The most impressive price cut in the A-Series was on the A4-3300 APU for 21.7 percent, or from US $46 down to US $36. The flagship A8-3870K got cut down by 9.9 percent while A6-3670K was cut down by far less impressive 3.7 percent.

The most impressive price cuts on the AM3 Athlon II side is on the Athlon II X4 640 and the Athlon II X2 265. The Athlon II X4 640 got cut down from US $98 to US $67, or 31.6 percent, while Athlon II X2 265 got cut down from US $69 to US $48, or 30.4 percent.

Two Athlon II CPUs, the X3 445 and the X4 638, were removed from the price list as they were most likely discontinued.

According to a report over at Digitimes, citing sources close to motherboard manufacturers, AMD is cutting prices on some of its Llano FM1 socket A-series APUs.

The price cut will include two socket FM1 based A-series APUs and kicks off with a 2.5GHz clocked dual-core A4-3300 that will drop from US $46 down to US $30. The second faster, 2.7GHz clocked dual-core A4-3400 will drop from US $48 down to US $35.

Last but not least, the new A4-5300 Trinity based socket FM2 dual-core APU clocked at 3.4GHz with 3.6GHz Turbo. According to the report, AMD plans to drop the price down from US $53 to US $30. This price cut is planned to come into effect three months from now, in order to directly compete with Intel Pentium CPUs.

It sounds like AMD is preparing for quite an aggressive transition to Trinity.

CPU World has found more evidence that AMD's second generation of Accelerated Processing Units from AMD will launch as early as tomorrow.

New A-series processors, codenamed "Trinity", are expected to have better CPU and GPU performance than older "Llano" counterparts. The upcoming A-Series products are produced in socket FM2 form factor, incompatible with previous generation of socket FM1 motherboards, and that is one of the main drawbacks of the soon to be released accelerated units.

Official prices are unknown but the APUs were available for pre-order since beginning of September, and at this time several "Trinity" boxed SKUs are available from Amazon. Amazon is flogging three different quad-core models, priced between $120 and $149.

AMD A10-5800K is the flagship A-Series microprocessor. Amazon sells it for $144.50 with free shipping, whereas other third party sellers on the same site sell it as low as $132 with extra shipping charges. This is about what the AMD charged for the A8-3850 and A8-3870K "Llano" processors when they first shipped.

The A10-5800K will offer about 27 per cent higher CPU and 33 per cent higher GPU frequencies at the same power level. Because the new products were designed to scale better with frequency, rather than to be more efficient at the same clock speed, the actual CPU performance is expected to be lower than 27 per cent.

AMD A10-5700 is for those who want better energy efficiency. Compared to the A10-5800K, the 5700 SKU has CPU and GPU clocks reduced by 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. Boxed version of this APU is sold by Amazon for $149.

Third APU, A8-5600K, seems to have a good compromise between performance and price, especially when better CPU performance is needed. The processor is priced at $121.55 by Amazon, and even cheaper by third-party sellers. CPU performance of this A8 part should be within five per cent of the A10-5800K.

According to a post over at Donanimhaber.com, AMD is preparing to add another APU to its FM1 socket lineup, the A4-3420.

The same A4-3420 APU has been around for a while, as an OEM part, but now it appears that this dual-core APU will now also hit retail. As noted, the A4-3420 is a dual-core APU clocked at 2.8GHz with a total of 1MB of L2 cache. It features Radeon HD 6410D graphics clocked at 600MHz and packed with 160 stream processors. It also comes with support for DDR3-1600MHz memory thanks to its dual-channel memory controller.

The A4-3420 is pretty much an update to the A4-3400 with a slightly 100MHz higher core clock and higher GPU clock. The TDP is still 65W.

The new A4-3420 APU should hit retail/e-tail with a US $65 price tag. You can check out the original post here.

In addition to socket FM1 Athlon II X4 631 and 651 CPUs, AMD has silently rolled out two more models, the Athlon II X4 638 and 641. Spotted by CPU-World, the Athlon II X4 641 already seen before has been joined by a totaly new part, the Athlon II X4 638.

In case you are wondering, the Llano Athlon II X4 CPUs are simply Llano dies with a disabled GPU part. The fastest Athlon II X4 641 is a quad-core that works at 2.8GHz, has 4MB of L2 cache and features SSE3, AMD64, Enahnced Virus protection and Virtualization. As noted, the Athlon II X4 641 fits into FM1 socket, has a 100W TDP and has been seen before retailing at around US $95.

The Athlon II X4 638 is also a quad-core FM1 socket CPU that ticks at 2.7GHz, making it the fastest AMD 65W TDP CPU, at least for now. It also packs 4MB of L2 cache and has pretty much the same features and specs as the Athlon II X4 641. Although it is still not available in retail/e-tail, the offical price of the Athlon II X4 638 is set at US $81.

The first pictures of AMD’s new FM2 socket seem to prove what has been rumoured for months – the new package won’t be compatible with FM1.

The old Llano FM1 package has 904 pins, while FM2 boasts 905. So, Trinity APUs won’t work on Llano motherboards, despite the fact that AMD will base its next generation chipsets on the current A75.

We always praised AMD for the longevity of its packages, especially the AM2 and AM3 series, so the decision to introduce a new, incompatible package for its second generation mainstream APUs is a bit disappointing, although not entirely unexpected.

Worse, AMD still seems to be experiencing Llano yield issues and probably won’t be able to resolve them by the time Trinity enters volume production. This means we probably won’t see many dirt cheap Llanos once Trinity is introduced, further speeding up FM1’s demise.

As expected and hinted earlier, Zotac has now officially announced its latest mini-ITX motherboard, the A75-ITX WiFi based on the AMD's A75 chipset with support for FM1 APUs.

As you would expect from Zotac's HTPC friendly motherboards, this one also features almost everything that you would want from a mini-ITX motherboard including the WiFi. The full spec list includes a PCI-Express x16 slot, two memory slots with support for up to 8GB of DDR3-1866 memory (depending on the APU that you are using), dual Gigabit Ethernet, eight USB 3.0 ports (two via header and six in the back), four SATA 6.0Gbps ports, 802.11bgn WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, DVI and HDMI outputs and 7.1-channel audio.

Due to the comprehensive feature list, we expect the new motherboard to retail/e-tail at around €90.

More vendors are joining the cheap and cheerful A55 motherboard market, with a few pretty affordable boards for AMD Llano FM1 processors.

In case you’ve missed it, the A55 is a no-thrills version of the A75 chipset. It lacks native SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 support, but A55 boards tend to offer impressive value for money. Besides, most entry level consumers simply don’t need these advanced features.

So, following in the footsteps of Gigabyte and ECS, Asus and Asrock are rolling out their first A55 boards. Both outfits have three boards on offer. Asrock is coming out with two ATX boards and it boasts DDR3 2400+ support. In addition, the A55 Pro3 delivers USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps support, which sort of makes us wonder why they bothered, since A75 already supports these features.

The A55 iCafe and A55H-HSV are ATX and mATX boards respectively. They lack USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps, hence they will probably end up on the cheap side. Sadly, there is no word on price yet and the boards aren’t listed in Europe as of Wednesday.

However, three Asus boards are already appearing in price lists and they are quite affordable. The full-AT F1A55 is priced at €66 and the mATX version, F1A55-M, goes for €65. The cheapest F1A55-M LE goes for just €58. It’s worth noting that we do not have the exact spec for either of them at the moment.

In terms of value, Gigabyte still leads the way, with its GA-A55M-S2V, which sells for just €51 and it is already available in several European markets.

Judging by early pricing info, it seems we will see sub-€50 A55 motherboards just in time for new Llano APUs. Depending on who you talk to, new 65W A-series parts and Athlons should start shipping by the end of the month or in the first week of September.

Altought we have seen this one in retail/e-tail before, MSI has now officially launched its MSI A75A-G55 FM1 desktop Llano ATX motherboard. The new A75A-G55 features MSI's Military Class II components, has two PCI-Express x16 slots with support for AMD's Dual Graphics and MSI's OC Genie II overclocking feature.

As far as the layout goes, the new A75A-G55 motherboard looks pretty clean, although we would certainly like to see angled SATA ports on the edge of the board. Spec wise, the new motherboard has four DDR3-1600 slots, two PCI-Express x16 slots (one set at x4 when both are used) with support for AMD's Dual Graphics and CrossfireX, three PCI-Express x1 slots, and two PCI slots, Gigabit LAN, two USB 3.0 ports, 7.1-channel audio, couple of USB 2.0 ports and DVI, VGA and HDMI outputs.

As far as the features go, the new A75A-G55 features MSI's Military Class II components including Hi-c CAPs, Super Ferrite Chokes and Solid CAPs, as well as, MSI's OC Genie II OC engine, ClickBIOS, Winki 3 Linux-based instant OS and i-Charger feature.

The new motherboard is currently listed in Europe with a lowest price tag set at €79,12. You can check it out here.